, 1887-10-23
A sAvANT ON DANCING.

A German Philosopher Talks-The Old
Pagan Dancos-MoraI Health.
NJ. Bohne, in his history of German
dancing and its future, observes: MAN
only knows dancing. " The bear dance does
not count because it has no psychic i'm
pulsion." Why do we dancer he demands.
Ninety per cent. do 30 for amusement, 0
to secure a substitute for a vapor bath,
and 1 for the love of aesthetics. But
dancing is also a marriage broker, q sort
of matrimonial agency. However, the
dance is also a civilizing agent. With
our ancestors nature meant only music
and dances, which, too, were attributed
to the gods. The author states the old
Germans were a dancing people; modern
Germans are not, and hat you can travel
two months in Germany without perceiv-
ing a Walter; whereas, voyage but eight
days in Spain, fandangos will be visible
everywhere. The demon Of dance seizes
the Spaniards in the streets, on the public
places, under the porches of houses. The
first musician who arrives and can touch
a guitar will compel the servant to throw
away her broom, the water carriers to
lay down their pitchers, the muleteers
will abandon their mules, and the inn
keeper will quit his dinner-to dance all
oohl anu VII lllo vi IdNe
always a foot in the air ready to spring;
SO had once the old Germans, and so
much SO that their bishops had the greatest
difficulty to prevent their focks dancing
in the churches-thus initiating the early
Christians.
However, sacred dancing was only a
form for expressing great joy. Renan
maintains dancing never figured in the
Christian liturgy, and M. de Pressense
agrees-for once-with Renan. Indeed,
the church had much difficulty to sup
press the old pagan dances. Bishops and
princes Numbered against them, but the
votaries up to the Twelfth century held
their dances at night in the cemeteries,
where they had the stimuli of mystery,
the fear of being surprised and the feel
ing hat they were doing wrong. In the
Sixteenth century Germany had a singu-
lar death dance" executed at wedding
parties. Lots were drawn to find the in
dividual who was to die; the doomed one
then stood in the center of the room, the
others danced round and the individual
after a while staggered, fell-became
dead. All stopped, then the dancers
chanted a pretty dirge-a funeral hymn.
If the departed was a man, each girl
came one by one and kissed him on the
forehead, and vice versa if a woman;
with the last death kiss he rose, the music
played a gay air and the triumphal ronde
surrounded the resurrectionist.
The real creators of that queen Of
dances, the waltz, were the Viennese,
and they ~monopolize it still. 1t is thus
that Musset wrote: 81 would like a
French duchess to be able to dance as
well as a German cattle drover." NJ.
Bohne believes dancing is dying, if not
dead. The workmen are debilitated by
factory life and soured by socialism. The
sons of the rich are worn out by excess,
by hot bed lessons and examinations
educational pressure, perhaps. Piety, too,
has departed, for true oiety made no per-
son sad; wine and beer are ad~ulterated;
people do not now get intoxicated, but
poisoned. In fact, the moral health of
moderns is less good than hat of their
ancestors, who were more patient under
suffering, more brave in the struggle of
life, because less egotistical. We are de-
voted only to ourselves.-Toronto Week.